Similar Plan Won't Stop Convention Center

January 23, 1986|By Ramsey Campbell of The Sentinel Staff

LEESBURG — Lake County officials are proceeding with plans to develop a convention center/recreational complex despite an announcement Thursday by a developer to build a $200 million recreational complex less than a mile away from the county's proposed site.

Lake County administrator Mike Willett said the private development would complement the county's plans.

''I don't see any negative effects, and there may be some positive effects,'' Willett said about the 926-acre complex planned by Olympia Sports World near U.S. Highway 27 and Florida's Turnpike.

The county's proposed site is 600 acres.

Olympia's development would include a wide range of sporting and training facilities along with 600 condominiums, 450 campsites, dorms and shops, said Norman Martin, an Altamonte Springs real estate agent who is president of the company.

The development would include a baseball training center for players and umpires, and developers want to attract a major league baseball team for spring training.

For nearly four years the Leesburg Chamber of Commerce pushed for a professional baseball spring training facility in Lake County.

Joe Holmes, a member of the Lake County Tourist Development Council responsible for the tax and an advocate of a spring training facility, said the idea sounds like a welcome project that could do privately what baseball supporters were trying to do publicly.

Willett said the developers of Olympia have told county officials they are open to suggestions to benefit both projects.